Industry Practice - Week 7:

In this blog I will be talking about market research, target audience and looking at itch.io games and what is popular on the platform.

Itch.io Games:

    Most Popular:

Top Visual Novel [online]. Itch.io: Visual Novel. Available at: https://itch.io/games/genre-visual-novel [Accessed 2 December 2024]

A lot of the most popular games on itch.io are dating games and horror games. A lot of them share similar art styles to each other and they are usually cel shaded or have a cartoon style to them. They use very popular art styles which may make the game more appealing to some.

This is similar to the top 10 most popular on steam as they are mostly horror games and dating sims too whilst also having similar art styles too.

    Top Selling:



Top Selling Visual Novel [online]. Itch.io: Visual Novel. Available at: https://itch.io/games/top-sellers/genre-visual-novel [Accessed 2 December 2024]

Similar to the popular games on itch.io the top selling are horror games. They have quite a difference in prices however a lot of them are horror games. They have similar themes too.

On steam the top 10 there aren't as many horror games and it is more focused on detective visual novel games with only a few of them being horror games.

    Top Rated:

Top Rated Visual Novel [online]. Itch.io: Visual Novel. Available at: https://itch.io/games/top-rated/genre-visual-novel [Accessed 2 December 2024]

A lot of the top rated on itch.io are life simulator visual novels that include different endings. Each using similar art styles whilst also having it be slightly unique.

On steam the top rated visual novels are mostly horror games. Most of the popular and top rated games on steam are horror games which contrasts the life sim games that are more popular on itch.io.

    Most Recent:


Latest Visual Novel [online]. Itch.io: Visual Novel. Available at: https://itch.io/games/newest/genre-visual-novel [Accessed 2 December 2024]

On itch.io the top 10 are a mix of horror games and dating games. Most use similar art styles however quite a few use their own unique art style however still stay in a relatively cartoon style which seems to be very popular as an art style on itch.io for their visual novels.

On steam the top 10 consist of mostly multiple choice games, horror and mystery games. There is more of a mix of the types of games on steam rather than the dating sims that itch.io has.

Benchmark Game:


danobleknight, 2024. A Game About Nothing [online]. Itch.io: Visual Novel. Available at: https://danobleknight.itch.io/nothing [Accessed 2 December 2024]

A game about nothing is similar to the game that we are looking at creating as it is a visual novel based on mental health and some that is struggling with mental health. This is very similar to our game as we are making a visual novel that is focused on mental health and showing what mental health is like and could be portrayed as.

The art style is different to the art style that we are aiming for however we thought that the games story and what happens in the game were similar to what we were aiming for with our game. During the game there is a little figure in the corner telling you not to do what you thing you should do because its a manifestation of the characters mental health. It shows how mental health can be however it doesn't mean its the same for everyone and its just an example of how it could look like to inform people.

Doki Doki Literature Club:

A well known visual novel game is Doki Doki Literature Club which we thought was a good game to look into for looking into the audience research as it has a similar age rating whilst also being a popular visual novel that has mental health themes included in the game. The game includes popular themes that can be seen on both itch.io and steam including dating and horror themes. 


Doki Doki Literature Club! [online]. SteamDB: Search. Available at: https://steamdb.info/app/698780/charts/ [Accessed 2 December 2024]


The image above shows the audience research for the game which shows that it is released on Nintendo Switch, Playstation, PC and Xbox so it is available on quite a few different platforms which is something that we were hoping to achieve by making our game accessible on all devices you can get itch.io on which is the platform we will be using to provide our game.

It was the 139th played game in October which means that it is quite popular with players which we will take inspiration from as taking inspiration from games that are successful will give us ideas of what players want in a game and what they don't want.


Doki Doki Literature Club [online]. Steam Charts: Search. Available at: https://steamcharts.com/app/698780 [Accessed 2 December 2024]

This shows how much the game was played during this week showing that it still is a popular game even though the game came out in 2017. With reviews being quite positive too.


Doki Doki Literature Club! [online]. SteamDB: Search. Available at: https://steamdb.info/app/698780/charts/ [Accessed 2 December 2024]


Market Research:

    Demographics:

- Age Group: 16 years old and above
- Gender Identity: Any Gender
- Ethnicity: Any Ethnicity
- Disability / Neurodiversity: Any Disability / Neurodiversity 
- Location: Any location as long as they have access to a device that can get itch.io
- Marital / Family Status: 
- Income: Any income


    Psychographics:

- Values / Attitudes: A willing to learn about mental health or people living with the 
- Tastes / Preferences (Styles): Stylised Art Style  
- Hobbies & Interests: An interest in learning about mental health 
- Political / Religious Beliefs: Any beliefs

Meeting:

We didn't end up having a meeting this week as everyone was busy and didn't have time to go through what we had done and what we were hoping to work on so I asked them to continue working on the assets that I asked them to work on during the last meeting we had.